Weaving is great for hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills. And you can create beautiful things when you weave. When I was back in elementary school, our grade 8 teacher showed us how to create beautiful woven heart baskets, and this is one of the crafts my children have done this year. The difference is instead of velvet ribbon, the children have made a paper heart basket.
It can be a little tricky to begin weaving these baskets, but once you get the hang of it, they’re fun to make. Kallista enjoyed making hers so much that she immediately set off to weave a second one!
To make a simple woven heart basket you’ll need:
- coloured construction paper
- a ruler
- a pencil
- scissors
- glue or tape
Let’s get started:
To begin, fold 2 pieces of construction paper in half. Then cut a strip of it about 6-7 cm wide. If you layer the papers, you’ll only have to cut once to get the two papers the same size.
Now round off the end that isn’t folded. Make it quite rounded, with the point about 11-12 cm from the folded end.
Next measure up from the folded end just a slight bit longer than your paper strips are wide and draw a light ‘stop’ line across both papers.
Now draw 3 lines straight from the folded edge to the line, roughly equal distances apart. Kallista’s second heart has 4 lines.
Next cut along your lines from the fold up to your stop line.
Now you’re ready to get weaving!
Take a big breath, and stay calm. It isn’t actually as hard to make these as it seems.
Put your two paper strips in front of you , curved side closest to you (Yes, Tristan is doing his backwards in the photo above, which may be why he was having a little more trouble.
Start by weaving the two inside ‘fingers’ together. You put the first left loop through the first right loop.
Then you put it around the next finger, then through, then around again.
Then you do the opposite with the next set of fingers to get the weaving pattern…
I’ll let Kallista give you a quick demonstration so you can see how easy it really is:
And when you’re done, just cut off another strip of construction paper and tape or glue it inside your heart to make a handle.
And there you have it: pretty woven heart baskets to hold Valentine’s surprises for someone special.
These are so quick and pretty, they will be beautiful on a doorknob, hanging on the wall, etc.
We have been included in an article by international resource publisher, Twinkl – you can read more here.”
